Astrolabez Gahana Veggie Road

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  These are the images I used for the characters.

Link to Play Game: https://studio.code.org/projects/applab/3_Z-12I6fjOcZzgiXJRHAqTZ6Ut0SO5D70zmUAaRF4c

Pitch Video: https://youtu.be/ZTApeG22hw4

Inspiration:

I wanted to target a large group of people struggling though stress or mental problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. I researched that over 53% of adults and children have elevated levels of stress due to the pandemic and home life. I personally went through a phase in the summer where I felt very depressed, so I wanted to create a fun app that would relieve stress and prompt mental/physical health.

What Veggie Road does:

My app is a twist-off of the pre-existing app called Crossy Road, but mine contains elements for mental and physical health. The player has to get the pea across the road and avoid obstacles. There are inspirational quotes and rewards given throughout the game to help the player feel motivated. Some of the rewards include stars and rocket boosts. Color psychology went into the game to promote a relaxed tone. There are changing pastel colored backgrounds in the game while one is playing. The soundtrack of the game is also very peaceful and does not increase the anxiety of the player. Veggie Road not only helps with stress, but it also helps with physical health. Using vegetables as the game characters and walking across the road subconsciously makes the player want to be more healthier and active. This is a very fun app and it will keep the player coming back to reach a higher score than before when going through the different levels. As the levels progress, the game becomes more challenging by the veggies moving faster which makes the player feel focused. All of the factors that I have placed into this app help with behavioral problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Veggie Road was built:

I used a website platform called code.org and used their CodeStudio to make my app using block-based coding (Javascript). I placed only 4 images in the app which were the veggies (pea, eggplant, cauliflower, carrot). We researched immensely about using loops, math, and conditionals to make my game functional. It was a time crunch trying to make everything perfect in my app since there was such a short time for this hackathon. CodeStudio has many creative aspects in terms of text boxes, colors, and backgrounds that I used to make my game more visually pleasing.

Challenges I ran into:

This was my first time creating a game. I knew some basic coding beforehand but I still had to do some research for the specific variables like placing rocket boosts and stars to appear randomly in the game. It was a challenge to figure out how to make the pea move across the road in terms of code. To move the player in the correct direction, I used playerMovement function and various sub functions to make it work. I also ran into issues trying to make the speed increase as the levels increased for the player. In the end, I overcame these challenges and I am proud of the app I made in such a short amount of time.

Accomplishments that I am proud of:

I am happy that I made a meaningful app that can definitely help the public to improve their mental and physical time during these difficult times.

What I learned:

We learned that it is important to take frequent breaks while working on code to feel fresher and to come up with new ideas. I learned more about functions and loops to make a game.

What's next for Veggie Road:

For my future steps, I want to fully develop Veggie Road into an app for the Apple Store/Google Play Store. To do so, I would need to combine all the different aspects that make my app successful. I would need to implement better images and more compelling obstacles to make the app look better. I think it would also be a good idea to try to make this game using other coding languages to get a feel for it. Since my game is a spin-off of the game Crossy Road, I need to create more factors which will differentiate from it.

Code:

The code for my game can be found in the PDF I attached with the rest of the components of my submission (video, DOC responses). I used a variety of loops, functions, and math variables to make my code. Specifically, the speed variable and boost variable are the challenging aspects of the code.

Built With

• javascript